• Militant Organization Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, 1970s
• Member of the Palestinian National Council Hanan Daoud Khalil Ashrawi, 1946

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad was created after some members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood believed that the organization did not commit enough effort to prevent Israel from occupying Palestinian territories. They felt as if they were not helping the Palestinian struggle. In 1979, after being inspired by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd al-Aziz Awda founded the group to fight for the sovereignty of Palestine and freedom from Israel. Shaqaqi and Awda conducted operations out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. The PIJ continued its work in Gaza until it was exiled to Lebanon in 1987. While in Lebanon, the group was able to receive support from Hezbollah and ultimately developed a close relationship with the Lebanese organization. While in Lebanon, the PIJ adopted any methods within reach to achieve their goals. In 1989, the PIJ moved to Damascus where it remains to this day.

The organization's banner leads from a verse in the Qur'an "And those who do jihad for Us, we shall guide them to our paths. And God is with those who do good." In effect, outlining the goals of the movement.

The group is currently based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, but there are also offices in Beirut, Tehran and Khartoum Its financial backing is believed to come from Syria and Iran. The group is primarily in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Its main strongholds in the West Bank are the cities of Hebron and Jenin. The PIJ has approximately 50 members as well as recruiting chemical engineers and volunteers. Because of its small size, the PIJ is unable to run large scale meetings to raise funds so instead they rely heavily on other organizations such as Hezbollah for financial support.

Islamic Jihad has much in common with Hamas, since both fight against the existence of the State of Israel. The distinction between the groups comes in the order of these priorities. Both groups were formed as offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood and receive a large amount of funding from Saudi Arabia. With similar goals, Hamas and the PIJ have worked together on a number of projects.

On February 20, 2003, University of South Florida computer engineering professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian was arrested after being indicted on a terrorism related charge. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft alleged at a press conference that Al-Arian was the North American head of the Palestinian "Islamic" Jihad. On December 6, 2006, Sami Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison, pursuant to a plea bargain. In November 2006 he was found guilty of civil contempt for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury. He served 21 months in prison on that conviction.

"Islamic" Jihad is alleged to have used minors as members of this committee. On March 29, 2004, 16 year old Tamer Khuweir in Rifidia, an Arab suburb of Nablus, was captured by Israeli forces as he planned to carry out revenge on Israel. His older brother claimed he was brainwashed and demanded the Palestinian Authority investigate the incident and arrest those responsible for it.

After Shaqaqi's death, Palestinian Islamic Jihad had been led since 1995 by fellow founder Ramadan Shallah.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for many militant activities over the years. The organization is responsible for a number of attacks including more than 30 completed suicide bombings. “On December 22, 2001, despite a declaration by Hamas to halt suicide bombings inside Israel, in response to a crackdown on militants by Yassir Arafat, PIJ vowed to continue its terror campaign. PIJ’s representative in Lebanon, Abu Imad Al Rifai, told Reuters, ‘Our position is to continue. We have no other choice. We are not willing to compromise.’” The Palestinian Islamic Jihad have claimed responsibility for the following attacks:

• August 1987: The PIJ claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed the commander of the Israeli military police in the Gaza Strip.

• July 1989: Attack of Egged bus 405 along the Jerusalem - Tel Aviv Highway, at least 14 people killed (including two Canadians and one American) and dozens more wounded. Though intended to be a suicide attack, the perpetrator survived.

• February 4, 1990: A bus carrying Israeli tourists in Egypt was attacked. The attack left 11 people, including nine Israelis, dead and 17 others injured.

• December 1993: Killed an Israeli reservist, David Mashrati, during a public bus shooting.

• April 1994: A car bomb aboard a public bus killed nine people and injured fifty.

• January 1995: Suicide bombing attack near Netanya killing eighteen soldiers and one civilian.

• April 1995: Suicide bomb in Netzarim and Kfar - Darom. The first bomb killed eight people and injured over 30 on an Israel bus. The second attack was a car bomb that injured twelve people.

• March 1996: A Tel Aviv shopping mall is the site of another suicide bombing killing twenty and injuring seventy five.

• November 2000: A car bomb in Jerusalem at an outdoor market killed two people and injured ten.

• June 2001: Suicide bomb attack at a Tel Aviv nightclub killing twenty - one people.

• March 2002: A suicide bomber killed seven people and injured approximately thirty aboard a bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Nazareth.

• June 2002: Eighteen people are killed and fifty injured in a suicide attack at the Meggido Junction.

• July 2002: A double suicide attack killed five people and injured 40 in Tel Aviv.

• November 2002: 12 soldiers and security personnel killed in an Ambush in Hebron.

• May 2003: Three people killed and eighty - three injured in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Afula.

• August 2003: A suicide bomber killed twenty - one people and injured over one hundred on a bus in Jerusalem.

• October 2003: Suicide bomber killed twenty - two and injured sixty at a Haifa restaurant.

• October 2005: A bomb detonated in a Hedera market was responsible for killing five people.

• April 2006: Suicide bomb in Tel Aviv killed eleven.

• January 2007: Both the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the PIJ claim responsibility for a suicide bombing at an Eliat bakery that killed three.

• On June 9, 2007, in a failed assault on an IDF position at the Kissufim crossing between Gaza and Israel in a possible attempt to kidnap IDF soldiers, four armed members of the al-Quds Brigades (the military wing of Islamic Jihad) and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (the military wing of Fatah) allegedly used a vehicle marked with "TV" and "PRESS" insignias penetrated the border fence and assaulted a guard tower in what Islamic Jihad and the army said was a failed attempt to capture an Israeli soldier. IDF troops killed one militant, while the others escaped. The use of a vehicle that resembled a press vehicle evoked a sharp response from many journalists and news organizations. The Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, Sarah Leah Whitsonn, responded by saying, “Using a vehicle with press markings to carry out a military attack is a serious violation of the laws of war, and it also puts journalists at risk.” The FPA responded by saying,

  "Armored vehicles marked with TV are an invaluable protection for genuine journalists working in hostile environments. The FPA has long campaigned for the continued availability of armored vehicles for its members, despite official opposition in some quarters. The abuse of this recognized protection for the working journalist is a grave development and we condemn those that carried it out. Such an incident will reduce the protection offered by marked vehicles."

  During a press conference, an Islamic Jihad spokesperson Abu Ahmed denied that they had put press markings on the jeep used in the attack and said, "The Al-Quds Brigades used an armored jeep resembling military armored jeeps used by the Zionist intelligence services."
• On March 26, 2009, two Islamic Jihad members were imprisoned for a conspiracy "to murder Israeli pilots and scientists using booby trapped toy cars."

Islamic Jihad has also deployed its own rocket, similar to the Qassam rocket used by Hamas, called the Al Quds rocket.

Islamic Jihad also control dozens of religious based organizations in the Palestinian territories that are registered as NGOs and operate mosques, schools and medical facilities that offer free services. Like other Islamic associations, these are heavily scrutinized by the Palestinian National Authority who have shut some of them down.

Ashrawi served on the Advisory Board of several international and local organizations including the World Bank Middle East and North Africa (MENA), United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the International Human Rights Council.

She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in literature in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut. Ashrawi also has a Ph.D. in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia.

Ashrawi was born to Palestinian Christian parents on October 8, 1946 in the city of Nablus, British Mandate for Palestine, now part of the West Bank. Her father, Daoud Mikhail, was one of the founders of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Her family later moved to Ramallah, where she attended the Ramallah Friends Girls School. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in literature in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut. While a graduate student in literature at the American University in Beirut she dated Peter Jennings of ABC News who was then stationed there as ABC's Beirut bureau chief. When the Six Day War broke out in 1967, Ashrawi as a 22 year old student in Lebanon, was declared an absentee by Israel and denied re-entry to the West Bank. For the next six years, Ashrawi traveled and completed her education gaining a Ph.D. in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia. Ashrawi was finally allowed to re-join her family in 1973 under the family reunification plan.

On August 8, 1975 she married Emil Ashrawi (born 1951), a Christian Jerusalemite who is now a photographer and a theater director. Together they have two daughters, Amal (born 1977) and Zeina (born 1981).

Ashrawi received an Honorary Doctoral Degree at the American University of Beirut on June 28, 2008 as part of an award ceremony coinciding with the university's 139th commencement. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Palestine Studies.

Ashrawi holds honorary degrees from Earlham College and Smith College.

Ashrawi is a passionate advocate of many human rights and gender issues. She is the recipient of numerous international peace, human rights and democracy awards, such as the Olof Palme Award, the Defender of Democracy Award, the Jane Addams International Women's Leadership Award, the Distinguished Alumna Award of the University of Virginia Women's Center, the Distinguished Lifetime Achievements AUB Alumni Award, and the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation.

Ashrawi is a non - practicing Anglican.

On September 26, 2009, in an interview on Riz Khan’s One on One on Al Jazeera English, Ashrawi defined her current role in the following way: "I think of myself essentially as a human being with a multidimensional mission. Basically, I am a Palestinian, I am a woman, I am an activist and a humanist, more than being a politician. And at the same time I feel that quite often things are thrust upon us rather than come as a result of a calm and deliberate choice."

While voluntarily a student but denied re-entry to the occupied West Bank, she became the spokesperson for the General Union of Palestinian Students in Lebanon, helped organize women’s revolutionary groups and served as a guide to foreign reporters visiting refugee camps.

Ashrawi returned to the West Bank under the family reunification plan in 1973 and established the Department of English at Birzeit University. She served as Chair of that department from 1973 to 1978, and again from 1981 through 1984; and from 1986 - 1990 she served the university as Dean of the Faculty of Arts. She remained a faculty member at Birzeit University until 1995, publishing numerous poems, short stories, papers and articles on Palestinian culture, literature, and politics.

Ashrawi's political activism in the Occupied Palestinian territories began almost as early as her academic career at Birzeit. In 1974, she founded the Birzeit University Legal Aid Committee and Human Rights Action Project. Her political work took a greater leap in 1988 during the First Intifada, when she joined the Intifada Political Committee, serving on its Diplomatic Committee until 1993. From 1991 to 1993 she served as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace process and a member of the Leadership / Guidance Committee and executive committee of the delegation.

From 1993 to 1995, with the signing of the Oslo Accords by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinian self rule was established, and Ashrawi headed the Preparatory Committee of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights in Jerusalem. Ashrawi has also served since 1996 as an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Jerusalem Governorate.

In 1996 Ashrawi was appointed the Palestinian Authority Minister of Higher Education and Research, but she resigned the post in 1998 in protest against political corruption, specifically Arafat's handling of peace talks.

In 1998, Ashrawi founded MIFTAH -- the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, an initiative which works towards respect for Palestinian human rights, democracy and peace.

In April 2007, Ashrawi visited the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, and gave a lecture entitled, "Palestine & Peace: The Challenges Ahead"

In July 2011, she represented the Palestinian people in a meeting with the Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and convinced him to visit the Palestinian territories.

In 2003 Ashrawi was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. Her selection drew praise from Mary Robinson (former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and former President of Ireland), and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Madeline Albright, former US Secretary of State also supported the selection and said, "She [Dr. Ashrawi] is a brilliant spokeswoman for her cause."

Her selection was controversial among some Jewish political organizations. Michael Kapel, a member of the board of the Australia / Israel & Jewish Affairs Council called her "an apologist for Islamic terror". Activist Antony Loewenstein argued in his book My Israel Question that the Australian media, and various Jewish organizations, defamed and vilified Ashrawi in order to prevent her winning the Peace Prize. Of the controversy, Israeli politician Yael Dayan said, "And this Hanan Ashrawi... I think she's very courageous, and she contributes quite a lot to the peace process." Baruch Kimmerling a sociologist from the Hebrew University wrote, "As an Israeli, as a Jew and as an academic I am deeply sorry and ashamed that members of the Australian Jewish community are acting against this rightful nomination."